On the night I moved into Bidford as a resident, I heard for the first time in my life, the call of a Tawney Owl. It was the real ta-woo-oo part of the fabled terwit-ta-woo that is famously associated with owls, thanks to the writings of William Shakespeare. To our great delight, we found that a pair of Tawneys were living in the churchyard, near to our house.
A few weeks later we discovered that a Barn Owl was living in a huge shed that was in the front of number 23, the bungalow a few doors away. This was a delight to watch in the evening dusk but not so pleasant to listen to. The call was a loud screech, usually at about 04:00 o’clock in the morning.
Each spring, the Tawneys had two or three chicks. We used to sit in our garden and watch them in the big lime trees in the east end of the churchyard. They looked like coconuts placed on the branches, we could see them getting bigger each day.
When number 23 was redeveloped into what is now Bryan Mews, obviously the Barn Owl was driven out when his shed was demolished, but the Tawneys left also. This we presume was because of the loss of their hunting ground, the overgrown orchard at the back of the bungalow.
We watched the owls for several seasons, until their demise. Their disappearance left us feeling sad because it made this part of Bidford appear urbanised rather than part of the country.
After the bungalow was demolished and the owls departed, a pair of rooks moved into the area and they appeared to be nesting in the top of the lime trees. In the few years since this development, they have built up quite a rookery. They now form a very vocal part of the local fauna, as they shout abuse at anything, human or animal that dares to move within their range.
It is very nice to see the antics of these birds cavorting about in the area but I must own up to preferring to watch owls. Also the guffaw of a crow is not as pleasing to the ear as the ta-wit or the ta-woo of a Tawney owl.
To our great delight in early June this year, we heard the blackbirds creating a lot of noise in the churchyard, indicating that a serious predator was about. They did not make that much fuss when there were cats in the churchyard, we hoped it meant that the Tawneys were back.
We went to the churchyard to investigate. As we could not see anything there, we tried the graveyard next door, to get a better view of the tops of the big lime trees.
We often see a heron flying to and from the river but I have never ever seen more than one heron at a time. This I am led to believe, is because they are solitary creatures who are also very territorial. That evening, we saw from the graveyard, what appeared to be an airborne invasion of herons. There were FIVE herons, flying in formation along the river from the bridge towards the churchyard. I assume this was either a mother with four juveniles or a pair with three young.
When they reached the churchyard, the herons all tried to land in the top of one of the big lime trees. The rooks were not too keen on this idea. There was a cacophony of noise from the punch-up sixty feet up in the air, as the two groups negotiated the situation. Wether the herons were there for a nightly roost or after tasty chicks, we will never know. The outcome of this encounter was that the herons decided to settle for the smaller willow tree on the opposite side of the river. Here they settled down and seemed to be ready for the nights roost.
As we watched the hilarious site of herons trying to roost in a tree, we noticed that the blackbird noise had stopped. We therefore assumed that the alarm had been raised for the approaching herons and not owls.
As we watched the herons, dusk was approaching and we suddenly heard what sounded like a rusty gate hinge swinging back and forth. This, we were delighted to hear, because it was a tawney owl parent communicating with its chicks.
The call was coming from the pollarded trees near the church door. We approached and the sound got louder and louder, then to our delight a large tawney appeared from out of the tree on our left and swooped silently across the path to an adjacent tree on our right.
We then listened to the stereophonic sound of the rusty gate hinge squeaking in one tree to our left, followed by a similar sound from the tree on our right. Some times it was question and answer and at other times it was synchronised together. It was wonderful to hear this music after the few years it had been missing from our lives, I hope they have now returned for good.
A few minutes later a chick appeared from the first tree and flew across to the tree with the parent. This event was repeated soon after, when another chick made the same move. We could still hear the plaintive questioning call of another chick in the tree to our left. Three chicks in a successful litter, would that be too much to ask for?
Soon after that the parent bird flew away, up the river towards the golf course, calling as it went. Maybe the parent wanted some space from its juveniles; or it may have wanted them to follow it to go hunting; or it could be because of our presence, so we decided to leave.
The next day, we discussed this encounter with our neighbours John and Heather. John told us that about five o’clock that morning, he had seen a baby owl walking along Church Street. Heather told us that she had recently seen a baby owl mugging a blackbird for the worm he had just caught.
According to my bird book this latter is quite common behaviour for little owls. So if this part of the village now has tawney owls and little owls, Bidford is once again a healthy place to be. All we need now is for the barn owl to return and the picture would be complete.
Unfortunately we have a postscript to this story. On the very night I put this to paper, I noticed John and his wife, in the churchyard with other neighbours. They were recovering a large bundle of feathers and down that was a sickly tawney owl chick. It was probably the one that John had seen walking up Church Street a few days earlier. John rushed it to the Vale Wildlife Centre at Beckford but it was dead by the time they arrived.
This morning I saw the sparrowhawk flying over our garden, it disappeared in the direction of the golf course. We like to see the predator birds, it means that the countryside is healthy with predators about. They are obviously helping their own species by surviving but they are also helping their prey species by weeding out the weaklings, this ensures a healthy breading stock for all of our futures.
Roy Aylmer Bidford-on-Avon July 1999
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